4th of July

Well, these past couple weeks we have been really
hammering our ward about coming out on exchanges
with us, even if they don't speak Creole. 
The ward never really seemed to respond.

Well, at this same time, our Ward Mission Leader,
had been praying for a missionary experience. 

Fast forward: 4th of July

We walk into our WML's (ward mission leader)
house to have a barbecue, and
we get talking about how we can help the ward. 
Out of the blue, Br. Bowen (WML) says,
"Hey, my neighbor is haitian."  We were very
surprised because Br. Bowen lives in a very
nice neighborhood.  Well, his neighbor leaves,
so we plan to go over when he returns home. 
About 2 hours later the neighbor returns. 
We walk over to just set up an appointment and
instantly the guy invites us in.  His name is
Patrick, and he is from Petionville, which is
the richest place in Haiti.  And he is golden.

Yesterday we had Fast and Testimony meeting
and Br. Bowen got up and talked about how he
received an answer to his prayer. 

Patrick loved church and later that night we
went to Br. Bowen's house and watched The Restoration.
We invited Patrick to be baptized. He said
yes, but that he wanted to read more in the
Book of Mormon before he was baptized.

This guy is an answer to many prayers.

We should have an amazing week!

I love you all very much,

have a good week

Michael

new address

Michael also has a new address:

717 Sherwood Terrace Dr.
APT 104
Orlando, FL 32818

4/13

**Sorry for the gap in his posts... I realized today that I have not been very diligent!


Hello everyone!

This past week was a pretty good one for us.  We ran into a couple of little situations
that were very interesting.
    First off, we received a referral from the other Haitian elders about a week ago.
So we call this man name Edner to set up an appointment.  We set it up for 10 AM.
So the day comes for our appointment, we ride our bikes over there, lock them up, and
walk to the door.  Well, to our surprise, there are 2 other guys there talking to Edner.
At first I thought that they were salesmen.  But after a while, I realized that they
were missionaries from a local baptist church.  Elder Mountain and I waited patiently
for them to finish.
  As we were waiting they turned around and saw us.  There "Door contact" took 45
minutes-which just so happened to be during our appointment time.
        Anyways, so one of the men came up to us and started asking questions that
were pretty stupid. Well, to make a long story short, they only wanted bash.  They
accused us of not being christian and so forth.
They used the same scriptures that another man had used just a week before.  So we
knew exactly how to answer every question in a way that would get them frustrated
enough to start passing judgment upon us. So after they left, we went and taught
Edner, and he became a new investigator.  Missionaries: 1  Satan: 0

Another experience we had was on Sunday.  Earlier in the week Moses had said that
he was going to be ready fo baptism before May 9, the day we challenged him for. 
He said that he was going to decide on Sunday, after church, when he was going to
be baptized. Anyways, his phone was cut, so there was no way to get a hold of him. 
We would stop by and his brother would be there.  His brother hates us because
he is a Jehovah's Witness.
  However, he told us that he would tell Moses that we came by.  Well, Sunday
morning we stopped by at around 11. We talked to his brother and told him to tell
Moses that someone was going to pick him up at 12:30 for church. Well, he agreed. 
The ride showed up and Moses was there.  However, his brother didn't tell him that
his ride was coming.  He flat out lied to us.  So that was pretty sad. 
Missionaries: 1  Satan: 1

We are definitely having a baptism this week- Johanne came to church yesterday
for the 4th week in a row. We had a 12 yr old girl fellowship her.  It was awesome!
She made a new friend and loved church!
Missionaries: 2  Satan: 1

Looks like we won the battle, again.  When will the adversary ever realize that
no matter what he does, he will always lose?

I love you all!  Thank you for your prayers!  Keep up the good work!

Love, Michael

Region Video

This is actually for Michael- A video of the region swims!

Private Blog Time...

Hey all! Michael is doing great. I haven't gotten any letters from him lately, which makes me annoyed since I spend the entire Sunday writing him:( Ha ha, just kidding. He's super busy and loving what he's doing. As far as his health, he hasn't mentioned it in a long time so hopefully that means he's doing better? Anyway, I decided that in the interest of internet safety, I will be making Michael's blog private. That means that unless I enter your email address, you won't be able to read all of the incredibly interesting things I post :) So... If you would like to continue reading about all of the great things happening in Florida, post a comment with your e-mail address and I'll add you to the "list." (Sounds official, doesn't it?) 

Thanks!

Marianne

Michael's Health

For those of you who don't receive e-mails or letters from Michael, here is the scoop since I haven't been able to copy and paste his whole e-mails lately.

-He and his companion are getting along well. They live in some nice apartments and are liking where they are.

-He and his companion are contacting like crazy. He says last Wednesday they contacted 163 people- more than any other companionship in their whole zone did in one week.

    "We challenged our Zone Leaders to challenge 100 people and so now we have this competition every Wednesday to contact as many people we possibly can. So far we have 6 new investigators because of it."

- They were supposed to have a baptism last Thursday but the girl couldn't make it to church. Then she couldn't make it to church again yesterday, so the soonest she can be baptized is the 18th. 

- They are trying to start up another Haitian branch in the middle of where they live. They need about 25-30 solid members to start a branch and they only have 6. 

-Michael's health has been declining and he is very frustrated. His ankle bothers him and he has terrible headaches. He has been taking whatever medicine he can and he will most likely go to a dr. soon. Please keep him in your prayers as he continues to battle his trials. He is loving his mission and says anytime he doubts that he is supposed to be there he gets an overwhelming reassurance that he is where he is supposed to be. We love him and miss him sooooo much!

More later

Marianne

sorry

sorry to all of michael's faithful followers. I've been trying to paste his past 2 e-mails to his blog but it won't let me. It's very annoying. I'll keep working at it. Thanks!

Marianne